A String of Thoughts and Getting Used to the Cold
by notevenifyoukillme
Summary: Her mother was in the ground and this was when everything started to get cold, all it was now was hard and cold and she had to be so many people and she didn't know how to be any of them. A look into Buffy's head after Joyce's funeral.


This is inside of Buffy's head during _Forever_, when she's with Angel after Joyce's funeral. I hope you enjoy it and if you do leaving a comment that would be wonderful and I'd REALLY appreciate it because it's all the recognition I get for writing it. I know I haven't posted anything in a while, and to those people who are following Destination, Unknown it'll be updated soon, I hope, but my computer just broke so I had to rewrite it all and thanks for sticking with me. This is a very inside-your-head and run-together piece which is why I haven't used a lot of full stops or commas. I hope I've gotten where she was at in these moments, that's really all I was aiming for.

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When Angel held Buffy in his arms that night, the warmth that usually rushed into her chest when he was close was absent.

There was only shock, and pain, and silence, echoing silence that ran deep into her core and made little cracks that she didn't fully recognise until they were ripped out of her adjacent to a two hundred metre high tower months later.

There wasn't warmth or love or comfort, there was superficial appreciation that someone cared, a voice in her mind that told her that she was grateful and that everything would go on. There was no strong, fiery girl reserved for the times when she needed the biggest push to battle the biggest demons, and the girl inside wasn't telling her that everything would be okay and that she could beat whatever was trying to destroy her life and the lives of everyone she cared about.

There was a knowledge that, despite everything, her life would continue; it would proceed and that was all she knew, that it would go on. She had no further consolations, no epochs and certainly no valedictories because she had already been dead when she found her.

It was ironic that the worst thing she had ever faced was the thing that threatened everything she loved in the most insignificant way possible. There was no threat really, just death and all she had done was dial an ambulance and she couldn't believe that she hadn't known C.P.R., there was so much Giles taught her and he had probably offered to teach her and she had probably passed it up because she didn't think she would need it because it had nothing to do with demons and when would a victim with a vampire bite ever need C.P.R. What a ridiculous and stupid thought and she had done what her father had always said not to do, she had brought her work home.

There was no reason for her not to learn C.P.R., had she ever thought about the human reasons she might have needed it? No of course she hadn't because she was a Slayer and she didn't think like a human anymore and still this was more human than anything she had ever felt and it was so tiny in the grand scheme of things and death was the aftermath of everything she did every single day so she should have been used to it and it was so small and she was so _small _God it was all tiny in the end, but there was no end to it and it always kept on going and it never stopped not any of it. Tiny, tiny, tiny, so, so small Giles we're not supposed to move the body no I can't stand because I'm tiny just like the rest of it.

She hadn't saved the world, there would be no crowd of thankful followers who were forever indebted to her for her bravery if they only knew that she'd saved them all again for the first second third tenth fiftieth hundredth time, this was her mother and her mother was dead and the most human thing she had ever faced compromised everything outside of human that she was, and all she wanted to do was sit down and go to sleep forever and never wake up again, or maybe transfer all of her energy into Slaying, she could be like Kendra, was it too late for her to be like Kendra? She could do that, she could turn off her feelings like a light switch or just never feel at all yeah never feel any pain again except for the cool sharp nail like Drusilla's as it – but no she couldn't do that because of Dawn, because of little Dawnie who needed her and needed her mother and now she was going to have to be both of them because she was the only one who could and there was no one left to keep them safe or take care of them and she was going to have to stay up late with her _and_ tell her to go to bed at the same time because she was going to be two people, no three people because she was the Slayer too she'd almost forgotten careless mistake what a stupid thing to do she could never forget what she was because it was destined and so many people depended on her and now she guessed Mom's the word and one more person placed their life totally in her hands in a way Dawnie never had before and her mother was in the ground and everything was hard and cold and she had to be so many people and she didn't know how to be any of them anymore.

She was going to have to wash the blood out of her own clothing and beat the dust out of her own shoes and her mother was never going to wake her up with pancakes or O.J. and she was going to make Mothers' Day so special for her this year because Tara had taught her how to do the funny shaped pancakes when they were waiting for Willow one day but now that would never happen and oh God she was crying again and Angel looked worried and how long was it until sunrise? It had to be a while because it didn't feel even moderately lukewarm, everything was just cold and there were Angels' arms again around her trying to keep her safe and make sure she could get through the night when the real problem was getting through the rest of her life and she didn't even know what brand of washing powder they used and she was going to have stains from all this mud but now she was going to have to wash them out herself because her mother couldn't do it anymore because she was dead and nothing was ever going to be the same and God it was cold.

For once, Angels' arms weren't comforting, she didn't want them there because she needed love or security or warm and fuzzy feelings, she wanted them there because she had to get used to the cold and he was always cold no matter what. And the quiet. He was always good at the quiet, and maybe one day she'd be too and they could all just be quiet and together and apart both at the same time because she was so many people now and her skin was beginning to numb. Maybe she was getting used to the cold. Maybe she never would.


End file.
